iTunes Hacks are a Sign of More to Come

The iTunes Support Community has been abuzz with users reporting their information was hacked. Customers complain about purchases made from PayPal accounts, credit cards and gift cards linked to their iTunes accounts. Some of these purchases date back to November 2010. Some speculate that the hacks are not linked. Others believe the iTunes gift card algorithm may have been compromised. There are also reports that a Chinese auction site auctioned off 50,000 iTunes accounts linked to customer credit card data. Regardless of the root cause, a big public cloud breach like this was only a matter of time. 

To date, the enterprise has been cautious with the cloud, but consumers haven’t been. iCloud, Amazon, Facebook, and other public cloud services now house sensitive information, including home addresses, credit card information, and social security numbers.  Now that iTunes user information has been compromised, many of these companies will likely scramble to update their adherence to cloud security standards. 

Most organizations have existing guidelines for protecting customer data, but few have taken the steps necessary to ensure their infrastructure is properly secured.  Because of this complacency, a monster breach of the public cloud may be just around the corner. Most enterprise customers are on a public cloud, not a private one, but that doesn’t mean IT leaders can’t take immediate measures to prevent an attack. Proactively monitoring logs is one way to spot patterns that may indicate an attack. In light of the damage a brand like Apple or iTunes could sustain with a large-scale compromise, taking the steps to proactively thwart malicious activity is more necessary than ever.